in the duties of religion, which, alas! is too commonly the case still in such parts of the colony as the late revival did not extend to. After they left us we continued vacant for a considerable time, and kept up our meetings for reading and prayer in several places, and the Lord favoured us with his presence. I was again repeatedly presented and fined in court for absenting myself from church, and holding unlawful meetings, as they were called; but the bush flourished in the flames. The next that were appointed to supply us, were the Rev. Messrs. William Tennent and Samuel Blair. They administered the Lord's supper among us; and we have reason to remember it as a most glorious day of the Son of Man. The assembly was large, and the novelty of the manner of the administration did peculiarly engage the attention. It appeared as one of the days of heaven to some of us; and we could hardly help wishing we could, with Joshua, have delayed the revolutions of the heavens, to prolong it. After Messrs. Tennent and Blair were gone, Mr. Whitefield came and preached for us five days, which was the happy means of giving us farther encouragement and engaging others to the Lord, especially among the church people, who received the gospel more readily from him than from ministers of the presbyterian denomination. After his departure we were destitute of a minister, and followed our usual method of reading and prayer at our meetings, till the Rev. Mr. Davis, our present pastor, was sent us by the presbytery, to supply us

a few weeks in the spring of 1747, when our discouragements from the government were renewed and multiplied; for upon a Lord's day a proclamation was set up at our meeting-house, strictly requiring all magistrates to suppress and prohibit, as far as they lawfully could, all itinerant preachers, &c., which occasioned us to forbear reading that day, until we had time to deliberate and consult what was expedient to do. But how joyfully were we surprised before the next Sabbath; we unexpectedly heard that Mr. Davis was come to preach so long among us, and especially that he had qualified himself according to law, and obtained the licensing of four meeting houses among us, which had never been done before. Thus, men's extremity is the Lord's opportunity. For this seasonable interposition of Divine Providence, we desire to offer our grateful praises, and we importune the friends of Zion to concur with us.

Thus far Mr. Morris's narrative. Then the Rev. Mr. Davis proceeds to give account of the state of their aftairs since he came among them, in April, 1747.

Upon my arrival, I petitioned the general court to grant me a license to officiate in and about Hanover, at four meeting-houses, which after some delay, was granted, on my qualifying according to the act of toleration. I preached frequently in Hanover and some of the adjacent counties, and though the fervor of the late work was considerably abated, and my labours were not blessed with success equal to those of my brethren, yet I

have reason to hope they were of service in several instances. The importunities they used with me to settle with them were invincible, and upon my departure they sent a call for me to the presbytery.

After I returned from Virginia, I spent near a year under melancholy and consumptive languishments, expecting death. In the spring of 1748, I began slowly to recover, though I then looked upon it only as the intermission of a disorder that would finally prove mortal. But upon the arrival of a messenger from Hanover, I put my life in my hand, and determined to accept of their call, hoping that I might live to prepare the way for some more useful successor, and willing to expire under the fatigues of duty rather than in voluntary negligence. The honourable sir William Gooch, our late governor, always discovered a ready disposition to allow us all claimable privileges, and the greatest aversion to persecuting measures; but considering the shocking reports spread abroad concerning us by officious malignants, it was no great wonder that the council discovered considerable reluctance to tolerate us. Had it not been for this, I persuade myself they would have shown themselves the guardians of our legal privileges, as well as generous patriots to their country, which is the general character given of them.

My congregation is very much dispersed. Were they all compactly situate in one county, they would be suffi cient for three congregations. Many of the church people

2 C

also attend. This I looked upon at first as mere curiosity after novelty, but as it continues, and in some places seems to increase, I cannot but look upon it as a happy token of their being at length thoroughly engaged. And I have the greater reason to hope so now, as experience has confirmed my former hopes; fifty or sixty families having thus been happily entangled in the net of the gospel by their own curiosity, or some such motive. There are about three hundred communicants in my congregation, of whom the greatest number are, in the judgment of rational charity, real Christians. Besides some, who, through excessive scrupulousness, do not seek admission to the Lord's Table. There is also a number of negroes. Sometimes I see an hundred and more among my hearers. I have had as satisfying evidences of the sincere piety of severals of them, as ever I had from any person in my life; and their artless simplicity, their passionate aspirations after Christ, their incessant endeavours to know and do the will of God, have charmed me. But alas! while my charge is so extensive I cannot take sufficient pains with them for their instruction, which often oppresses my heart. There have been instances of unhappy apostacy among us, but blessed be God, not many in proportion to the number brought under concern. At present there are few under promising impressions, but, in general a lamentable security prevails. Oh for a little reviving in our bondage!

I might have given you a particular account of the

conversion of some persons here, as indeed there are some uncommon instances of it; but I shall only observe in general, that abstracting from particular circumstances, the work of conversion has been carried on in such steps as are described by experimental divines, as Allein, Shepherd, Stoddard, Flavel, &c. And nothing confirms me more in the truth of their opinion concerning experimental piety, than this agreement and uniformity as to the substance, in the exercises of those who can make the fairest claim to saving grace.

There is one Isaac Oliver here, whose history, could I write it intelligibly to you, would be very entertaining. He has been deaf and dumb from his birth, and yet I have the utmost reason to believe he is truly gracious, and also acquainted with most of the doctrines, and many of the historical facts of the Bible. I have seen him represent the crucifixion of Christ in such significant signs, that I could not but understand them. I have seen him converse in signs about the love and sufferings of Christ, till he has been transported into earnestness, and dissolved in tears.

Thus, dear sir, I have given you a brief account of what I am persuaded you will readily own to be a work of the Lord. We claim no infallibility, but we must not fall into scepticism. If we could form no judg ment of such a work, why should we pretend to promote the conversion of men, if we cannot have a satisfying knowledge of it when it appears. Indeed the evidence of